My birthday present (back in April) was a place on a beginners evening special effects makeup course, although it doesn’t actually start until January.

I also got given some makeup bits for wounds, and I’m too impatient to wait until the new year to get started, so I have tried my first ever attempt at makeup! It feels good to embark on an entirely new artistic path.

My daughter, who is five, is very patient with my projects and was happy to be my model. I definitely never expected to say that I gave my daughter a black eye.

From a distance it doesn’t look terrible, I don’t think, but it also doesn’t look that obvious, so maybe I should’ve gone more over the top. I definitely think I should have used some yellow which bruises often develop.

She was very happy to be photographed but only if she dressed as a princess which perhaps gives the images an unsettling tension.